Sitting by the edge of the pool beneath the open ceiling, Maximus waited for his father. When he passed through the iron gate, the marble pillars, the decorative door—the memories had rushed through his mind. Now inside the villa atrium, it seemed surreal.
He glanced with fondness at the tile floor where he used to play as a child. The faces in the mosaic designs seemed to frown back at him. He stroked his rough beard. What will father say? He had not touched a razor since leaving the legion. Will he even know me?
This scene taken from my forthcoming novel, Maximus: The Quest For Greatness, depicts the son of a wealthy Roman, entering his father’s villa. The villa was a country home of the Roman Patrician, the wealthy class of Rome. Usually the villa sat on a vast piece of land, cultivated with wheat fields, olive groves, and grape vineyards.
Although the villa usually had only one story, they sometimes had two. Just inside the door a passage led to the central room of the villa, the atrium. The atrium had an open ceiling above a pool which collected rain water for use in the gardens and baths. Surrounding the atrium, were the bedrooms, dining room, servant quarters and a courtyard.
The most wealthy Romans had both a country villa and a city home called a domus. The villa was the primary summer residence of the wealthy class seeking to escape the heat of the city. But some did not have that luxury. The domus was laid out very similarly to the villa, though the villa was larger. The domus did have one important convience—running water and plumbing.
But for the vast majority of Romans, luxury city and country homes were unheard of and far out of reach. Instead, they lived in one or two room apartments called insulae. An insula could range in height from two stories to as high as seven. Few had running water and plumbing was non-existent. Already narrow streets were made still narrower by how the buildings were built. The upper-floor dwellings branched out over the narrow street, leaving a scarce distance between buildings on opposite each other.
Even though a vast chasm separated the home of the wealthy from the poor, no amount of wealth could save either home from the Great Fire of 64 A.D. Rich, or poor, strong or weak—all were equal before the flames.
Till the future is history,
~Shane
Be sure to watch out for the coming release of Maximus: The Quest For Greatness!